HDP vows to cut presidential power to symbolic level
Date
10/2/2015 12:19:20 PM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly)Turkey’s opposition People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has unveiled its election manifesto vowing to reduce Turkish presidential powers to a symbolic level.
The manifesto also calls for the PKK and Turkish security forces “to silence weapons stop the bloodshed and get back to the negotiating table”.
In the 52-page document the HDP also promised to lower the 10 percent electoral threshold for parties to enter the Turkish parliament as well as to lift immunity from prosecution enjoyed by MPs and National Security Council members.
A HDP meeting in Ankara on Friday announced the party’s candidates to run in the Turkish 26th general election on Nov. 1.
The party is promising to turn Turkey’s Directorate for Religious Affairs into a “Religion and Faiths Works Committee” and to give the official place-of-worship status for cemevi used by Turkey’s Alevi community.
The HDP said that it would guarantee young people’s right not to perform compulsory military service and would lift the “village guard” system where armed security personnel recruited from local population -- some on salary and others volunteering – help with policing.
Party co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas insisted that a Turkey without HDP would be a “ship sailing in dangerous waters”. He said “because of the balance that HDP provides to the ship” it does not capsize or sink despite attacks and crises it faces.
“Those who work to take the HDP out of the ship or exclude it should be aware that if the HDP is not on board the ship sinks -- we sink all together” Demirtas warned.
His party passed the 10 percent threshold in the June 7 general election winning about 13 per cent of the vote and gaining 80 places in the 550-seat parliament.
It is the second party to unveil its election manifesto in the run up to the Nov.1 contest.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party announced their program on Sept 30.
The Justice and Development (AK) Party and Nationalist Movement Party are yet to detail their platforms.
Turkey is heading for an early general election after no party succeeded in creating a ruling coalition after the June 7 poll.
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